EXCLUSIVE: 'Hundreds' of illegal immigrant children are being handed to relatives who are in the US illegally too, as HHS admits it makes NO EFFORT to find out their immigration status

The US Dept. of Health and Human Service takes custody of tens of thousands of minors each year who cross the border without their parents

An official spokesman at the agency says there is 'no' effort made to determine the adults' immigration status

An HHS official says while the agency's first choice is to find each child a relative who lives legally in the U.S., that's not always possible

So some children are already being released to the care of illegal immigrants in their immediate or extended families

'They're more concerned with clearing the caseload than with the immigration status of the adult sponsors,' the source said

'Would you rather see these kids in glorified warehouses or reunited with a family member who doesn't belong here?'

A federal judge ruled in December that the Obama administration is helping drug cartels and human traffickers by taking kids to live with illegal-immigrant parents who pay smugglers to bring them across the border

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services makes no effort to determine the immigration status of adult relatives when they show up to claim unaccompanied minor children who entered the U.S. illegally, a spokesman at the agency confirmed on Wednesday.

Tens of
thousands of the under-18s – 'Unaccompanied Alien Children' (UACs) in
government-speak – have poured across the U.S.-Mexico border in recent
months, creating what President Barack Obama has termed an 'urgent
humanitarian situation.'

HHS, which houses them until family members can be found, has begun releasing illegal immigrant children 'by the hundreds' into the custody of adults who are illegal immigrants themselves, an HHS official familiar with the situation on America's southern border told MailOnline late on Tuesday.

An official spokesman for HHS's Administration for Children and Families confirmed on Wednesday that the agency has no system in place to verify whether the adults are here legally.

Kenneth Wolfe told MailOnline on Wednesday that 'around 90 percent of the minors in the UAC
program are released to verified sponsors (mostly family members) in the
U.S.'

Asked if 'verified' means that the adults' immigration status has been checked, he responded, 'No.'

He
also answered 'no' when asked if there is 'an effort made to ascertain
the immigration status of the adults who claim the kids.'

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Waiting: Illegal immigrant children are held in Texas, Arizona and Oklahoma being moved to shelters

Military bases have become emergency housing facilities for the children, who are housed by the government -- first in Homeland Security facilities like this one, and then at locations chosen by HHS -- until a relative can be found in the U.S.

Most of the
children are turning themselves in to U.S. Border Patrol agents, who
transport them to a facility where they are processed and given 'notices
to appear' before an immigration judge between 10 and 90 days later.

HHS
takes over after that, drawing on a $1 billion budget to house, feed
and otherwise care for the children until a suitable adult family member
can be located to claim them.

The
first HHS official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not
authorized to comment to the press, said his agency first tries to find a
legal U.S. resident related to each child to take custody.

But
barring that outcome, he cautioned, 'I know they're more concerned with
clearing the caseload than with the immigration status of the adult
sponsors.'

As many as 90,000 are expected to go through the system during the government's fiscal year that ends on September 30.

The official said the glut of cases at military bases serving as 'holding facilities' threatens to 'overwhelm our ability to care for all these kids in the long-term.'

'It's just not sustainable, is what I'm telling you,' he said. 'So to bottom-line it, would you rather see these kids in glorified warehouses or reunited with a family member who doesn't belong here?'

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According
to official statistics from the Department of Homeland Security,
deportations of illegal immigrants under the Obama administration have
spiked to new highs.

But
those numbers are deceptive: Changes in terminology have left
head-counters with no choice but to roll several categories together,
now classifying cases where immigrants are stopped and turned back at
the border as 'deportations.'

Actual
expulsions of people who have crossed the border unlawfully and then
settled in America's interior are down more than 40 per cent since
Obama's first year in office.

The resulting contradiction allows Obama to publicly embrace a tough-on-immigration image while privately assuring his Latino constituency that he means to allow more Mexican and Central American aliens to stay with each passing year.

A scenario where HHS gradually mainstreams thousands of the children flooding into the U.S. from south of the border by turning them over to undocumented adults would fit that pattern.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took issue with what appears to be an unprecedented immigration policy-in-the-making on Tuesday night during a town hall broadcast on CNN.

Mixed messages: The White House held a ceremony on Monday to honor ten young illegal immigrants as 'champions of change'

Flood: Border Patrol buses drive underage illegal immigrants from the border to temporary facilities where they are processed and given court dates before being transferred to HHS

'They
should be sent back as soon as it can be determined who responsible
adults in their families are,' Clinton said of the children.

She
told question-and-answer moderator Christiane Amanpour that 'all of
them that can be should be reunited with their families' in their home
countries.

'We
have to send a clear message,' Clinton said: 'Just because your child
gets across the border, that doesn't mean the child gets to stay.'

Tough: Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson has left open the question of what happens when illegal immigrants try to claim their children, while insisting that he was 'not encouraging in any way, shape or form illegal migration'

If Clinton decides to run for president, her position will land her in unusual company.

Republican
lawmakers have slammed the Obama administration for failing to enforce
immigration law, and for instituting a 'Deferred Action' program in 2012
that cancels deportation orders for people brought into the U.S. as
children before June 2007.

News
of that policy, they argue, has filtered down to impoverished Central
Americans and the human-trafficking 'coyotes' who guide them,
sherpa-like, through hundreds of miles of Mexican wilderness.

Tens of thousands of children may believe they will benefit from what Washington insiders have termed Obama's 'mini-amnesty.'

Clinton will also find herself in agreement with Federal Judge Andrew S. Hanen, who ruled in December that the Obama administration aided drug cartels by knowingly allowing a 10-year-old Salvadoran girl to complete her illegal trek into the U.S. by reuniting her with her illegal immigrant mother in Virginia.

The Department of
Homeland Security, Hanen wrote, is 'delivering the minors to the custody
of the parent illegally living in the United States.'

The agency also never prosecuted the mother or took any action to remove her from the United States.

Hanen wrote in his ruling that the case of Patricia Elizabeth Salmeron Santos, who paid a trafficker $8,500 to bring her child across the border, was the fourth case he had seen in a month.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, he wrote, flew the children to multiple locations in order to locate their parents, even though they had no legal basis to be in the country.

'The DHS has simply chosen not to enforce the United States' border security laws,' according to Hanen.

It is 'completing the criminal mission of individuals who are violating the border security of the United States.'

According to HHS materials
that Wolfe emailed to MailOnline last week, the Homeland Security Act
of 2002 changed the federal government's focus in these cases, 'to move
towards a child welfare-based-model of care for children and away from
the adult detention model.'

'The
average length of stay in the program is currently near 35 days. Of the
children served, some 85% are reunified with their families.'

It's unclear how many of those family members are in the United States legally, and how many are outside the U.S.

MailOnline's source at HHS said he suspected the number staying in the United States would grow 'as the space issues become harder to manage.'

Meanwhile, taxpayers cover expenses related to classroom education, recreation and mental health and medical services at facilities on military bases including Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Ventura County Naval Base in southern California and Fort Sill Army Base in Oklahoma.

But HHS's policy is to send most of them to 'state-licensed' care providers licensed by its Office of Refugee
Resettlement.

That
agency describes its mission as 'provid[ing] new populations with
opportunities to maximize their potential in the United States, linking
people in need to critical resources to assist them in becoming
integrated members of American society.'

The National Catholic Register reported on Friday that a church-funded shelter in McAllen, Texas – ground zero for the rush of underage illegals – planned to shelter 'hundreds ... each week.'

'In the Brownsville Diocese alone,' the sectarian newspaper reported, '13 shelters house the immigrant kids. Catholic adults volunteer in all of them. The two largest facilities shelter up to 300 at a time.'

Kristyn Peck, associate director of children’s services for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Children and Migration Office, said that 'these are children. It is in our mandate as Catholics to care about this population.'

'Given opportunities to thrive, they will thrive,' Peck said. 'They are incredible people.'